This Wonderous Darkness
by Rowna Seria
Summary: An oddly impersonal short story writen in first person. A story given to late night (or early morning in this case) wanderings (and wonderings) dark thoughts. It explores the lovley darkness some of us take for granted. It explores a character's mind as w


A/N: this is an oddly unpersonal story written in first person. I never state the charachters names, so... I've desided to tell you, but backwards and in code. Just read it like you would the mirror of Eresid. if you don't want to know, just skip past that part really fast

main character: yo flamo card... other character: regna rgeno im reh

That was fun. Now don't make any assumptions on that information, you never know! I'm fairly correct on what the genre is NOT, though I'm not sure what it is. ANY WAY! Please read & review, it would be very nice of you (as long as your not mean about it)

This Wonderous Darkness

I woke up this morning sad. That's all there is too it: sadness. I didn't care about anything, not even my reputation, or my life for that matter. It was all buried in that sweet darkness so many call home. I don't really mind it anymore. Today I'll begin as I have every day. The same mask I've worn for much too long will be brought out again, and used liberally. No one knows me; I can't let them see that side of me. It's me deepest weakness, deepest fears. No, the people I know would use that against me. I don't trust anyone.

I pull on my sweater; it's the glorious color of gray. Gray, black, and white, that is what I am, that is how I look. I take my cloak off the end of my bed and fling it around my shoulders; my roommates remain fast asleep. Pulling on some black boots I think to myself that it's funny how they make me look old fashioned because they go up till they are just below my knees. Tiptoeing out, I walk down the cold stone stairs from the boy's dormitory, and down into the drafty common room below. No one is up yet; I'm the only one stirring at this lonesome hour. The large grandfather clock indicates it's only shortly after 4:30 in the morning. I'd rather be asleep.

Usually I prefer to waste away my weekend mornings in bed, sleeping or no, but today I can't seem to allow myself that liberty. Sleep and rest won't come to my limbs, a strange energy fills them; a feeling like they need to go everywhere and nowhere all at once. So I got up. Now I'm heading out into the deserted corridor, I pull my cloak tighter around my shoulders; I can even see my breath. The torches in the corridors are not yet lit, so I take out my wand and mutter "lumos"*

The light shines in a cold blue hue and illuminates only a small area of the corridor. The darkness is alive around me, trying to consume my small point of light. I see the corridor is lightening up ahead, so I dowse my light and let the darkness swallow me. I head forward, the only thing I can see is the end, the end I hunger for so badly. I set my mind on it and nothing else, the way I've done before. I look at it and only it, otherwise I'll see too much and feel too much; I only want to reach my goal with no regrets. The way I've been taught to.

But that's not the way the real world works, in the real world you don't have complete darkness to narrow your view. If you do find the darkness it eats you whole, it consumes your pride and drowns you in sorrow. It makes you feel like I do now. The darkness you use to see singularly eats you as you go, and my mask is the only shield I have. But it is still like acid, it eats away at me too. It tortures my soul, it makes my heart sick. Then, I will become nothing but an empty shell.

Yet I do not want that, I do not want to sacrifice everything in a goal that will eat me away into nothing, turn me into something I myself loath. But how can I escape the thing I need, the thing I hate, the thing I love, the thing all my life has been centered around; how can I escape my father? How can I when every day he looks back at me through the mirror; I see not myself, but him, in my reflection. Tell me how to escape that.

Bursting out into the entrance hall, filled with the odd eerie light that comes from the snow, I pause for a moment. Here I am in the light, in the light that is the darkness its self. Snow is a false hope, a fake friend. It wears the guise of light and purity, but it is cold and unforgiving.

I stood for a long moment there thinking nothing, and just feeling the cold seep through my soul. It's lonely here in this wonderous darkness. It's cold, dear god it's cold like hell. Sometimes I think the heavens are laughing at us, at everyone in the world lost in their own folly. Every one is lost; especially me.

I see the large stair case before me, and for some reason I'm drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Ascending the stairs, I wonder: why I'm going up there, why? There is nothing for me up there, just a place of empty class rooms and unwelcoming common rooms, empty corridors and empty hearts. As I reach the top off the stairs I look back down from where I had been. I cold harsh laugh escapes my lips; I can't even recognize it as my own. This sharp cold laugh cuts even my ears. It was all because of I thought I had had: during school you can sometimes see people rushing up the stairs, or bursting out of the dungeon corridor in large groups like demons climbing from the depths of hell; little do they know they climb from one hell to the next. That is why I laughed, what else can one do?

As I continued to slowly walk onward down the corridor the death like hush unnerved me. My light foot steps and muffled shoes (for they where made to be quiet) caused my procession to be oddly silent; as if I was dead, but still walking like a ghost. I pass class rooms and empty places, all dim in this cold morning's dark. The light from the snow is that odd blue-ish light from the moon reflecting off the snow.

I turn a corner and soon come to the library; the door is ominously open, as if it is welcoming me in, unlike the rest of the school. Silently padding along I peer around the door into the seemingly empty library. As I make my way through the dusty old volumes, written of wizard's pasts, wizard's futures, and the present as well. At least that's the way I look at it.

As I come to the end of a shelf and into an area for working I see a table covered in books and parchment. In a chair, slouched over a large volumes lies a person. I soon recognize her. It would be hard to forget her after all I've done to her, and her undaunted resolution and determination. All of her pride clashes with all of mine.

For a moment I stand where I am, caught in indecision. Part of me wants to leave, part of me wants to mess up her stuff, and part of me is simply curious. It's odd to want to do three things at once. Moving over in front of her face I see her sleeping in an exhausted sleep that comes from working too hard. For some odd reason, I am now only curious; no evil intentions stalk my brain, no thoughts that would be cruel come to mind. No, it is all curiosity.

Reaching down I pick up a letter she had obviously been writing. The script was neat and well written; it figures good writing _is_ required for good grades. Part of me wishes that she had poor hand writing, so I could hate it and curse it, but that is not to be. Looking at the letter in the light of false dawn I read:

Dear Mother and Father,

Thanks for the post card; it must have been fun on your trip,

I wish I could have been there. Don't worry; I've been studying really hard for the upcoming OWLs, even though everyone thinks it's early. I'm still your studious little girl! My friends are doing fine, although I'm sure they wouldn't be passing the classes without my help. Well, not one at least. I've been helping them out, and with prefect duties I'm getting really busy, but I've been doing as you told me: working hard and having faith in the fact that if I work hard now I'll have free time later. I hope that's true, some aspects of school are rather stressful... not to mention any one in PARTICULAR. But, I'm sure you've heard enough of my complaining about him. It's just annoying because some part of me keeps thinking that he aught to be smarter than he is, or at least acts. It seems like such a waste. Any way, I hope you're all doing fine.

Oh there's one more thing, Mother, I really need to talk to you about--

But, before I could finish reading the letter, (which I assure you was probably not a nice thing to do, seeing as it's private), she stirred and in a freak bit of caution I quickly put back the letter and ran out of the library as quietly as possible. I retraced my steps down the corridors and when back to the entry way. In an odd feeling of necessity I went out the front doors and onto the grounds. I always thought it was kind of odd how the doors are never monitored, but that's ok, I like it that way. Creeping out onto the snow covered grounds I look around me and wonder. It just hit me that there was something odd about the letter, like it referred to me... but that isn't likely, is it? Probably not.

Gazing out at the snow my former feelings are replaced with that same empty coldness as before. That realization: no matter what had happened back at the library, that no matter what I had felt, I would go to breakfast with the same mask I wear now, and I will wear it tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, and for even longer yet. It's safe behind it. Masks made of pride usually are, they can even be supports. But pride is a lonely thing; it eats you because it can not be shared. You cannot truly be proud _with_ some one. No, you can both be proud for the same thing, but it's not communal.

I stand here and I feel empty. I feel like one who has everything he wants, and nothing he needs. Sometimes I wish the world was black and white, then I could be happy in my darkness. I would never have the soft side eaten out of me, drained out of me, to be filled with this unrelenting sorrow. I would never have to be sad. But that is not the case; it never will be, here in this wonderous darkness.

A/N: (again) So, what do you think? I should probably clean up the tenses, I'll have to get someone to help me with that ^^;


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